


The Next Best Thing

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Age Difference, Alien Culture, M/M, Submission, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:55:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment in time. The context of the past and the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Best Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into English available: [Золото и серебро](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059386) by [WTF_Star_Trek_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Star_Trek_2016/pseuds/WTF_Star_Trek_2016)



> Set post-"Distant Voices".

Powerful embraces, the kind only the arms of another man can give. Kisses traded in heat and hunger. Shared breath in the darkness. Julian moves into position and looks down into brilliant Cardassian eyes and, seeing permission granted, presses forward with his upper body weight braced on his hands. Sharp fingernails rake savagely down his sides, leaving welts he will still be able to see come morning. He feels no regret, only bittersweet exultation.

Julian knows enough about Cardassian sexual politics to understand that by entering Garak this way he has placed himself in the subordinate position, the handsome youth servicing his older, more powerful mentor. But beyond providing a certain illicit sexual thrill, an inversion of the power dynamic he's used to when he gets someone between the sheets, Julian finds this detail irrelevant: what matters is the clasping, the friction, the entering, the opening of this man who keeps so much of himself hidden, who values secrets far more than truth. This at least is not a secret any more: the scales that darken with arousal, the ridges that are startlingly sensitive to clever fingers or a sneaky bite, the weight of an alien cock in Julian's mouth and hands, the way Garak hisses deep in his chest at the moment of penetration. This much, at least, he  _knows_. This much at least is true.

Four and a half years from now Julian will look Garak in the eyes and look away again with a painful welling of tears, unable to face the reality of a final goodbye that is never actually spoken. Three months after that he will be on Cardassia, gazing into Garak's face again and feeling a relief that is almost orgasmic when he sees an answering smile there, a welcome equally silent and equally understood. But for now there is this purely physical intimacy, a yielding whose precise extent Julian does not comprehend even as Garak arches beneath him and clutches at the sheets, growling low in his throat, and Julian resolves that if he cannot have love he will certainly make do with the next best thing.

THE END


End file.
